December

by brittanychavez

It is December. Here I am.

The past few weeks, before Thanksgiving break, I had been getting so stressed out. About school. I love, absolutely loved, everything I was making and doing. But it was just so much, every day, waking up early and staying at school late and there never seemed to be any break. Just day in, and day out, and go go go and don’t sleep, sleep five hours, wake up early, go to bed late, pay the bills, spend all day in the print shop, and all week printing photographs, and write, and get home every night with only enough time to crawl into a cold bed and wake up at 5:55 the next morning.

I want this month, these next few weeks until the end of term to be different. I have so many things to do. I have three big projects and one paper. And they are all due. And they are all important to me. And I have ideas for all of them that require lots of time and money and stress. And I just can’t let it be like that or I will go insane. And it won’t be worth it anymore. I will no longer be connected to these things. What’s the point of making if I don’t have the context of my life for it to be in?

I am excited for December. There are so many things I want to do and accomplish. My projects, of course, which are hard and scary sometimes. (My photography project this time around is going to deal really intimately with a big insecurity.) And also I love Christmas time. I feel like a kid for counting down the days, but what else am I? I want to leave time to go home early, and make christmas decorations, and spend time on people’s gifts, and be happy. I want to do more art for me. I want to get back into just photographing. Not for anything, just to do it. Just because it’s what I love and there’s no reason not to do it. And I want to start a drawing, a new big drawing. I have been drawing a little in sketchbooks and things but haven’t done anything large scale in a while.